


downtime

by pile_of_rocks



Category: Warframe
Genre: Gen, mentions of a couple other characters but not in detail
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:41:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27453643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pile_of_rocks/pseuds/pile_of_rocks
Summary: A lone Tenno operative and his cracked ship cephalon find some moments of quiet.--i dont usually write fic but when i do, it's probably drabbles
Kudos: 17





	downtime

Contrary to popular belief, the Tenno did carve out time to rest now and again.  
Their schedules are sporadic and eclectic-fittingly unpredictable, some would say. Yet once a lull seeps into a sector one might be keeping an eye on, the opportunity to relax and breathe is almost never passed up.  
Some use these moments for correspondence with other operators, others take the moment to tweak and calibrate their arsenals. Occasionally, a new weapon or frame would be set to build.

Merca chose to use his moment of peace to splay out on the floor, treating a hoard of floofs as both mattress and pillow. He'd been spending several hours prying materials from a facility on Venus- pah, the adornments on Protea would need readjusting.  
Not now, though.

For now, the only movement in the orbiter was from the two cleaning drones and the foundry's automations for close to an hour. A peaceful lull settled amidst the mechanical clicks, hisses and hums- further aided by the gentle tune quietly seeping from the somachord.  
Protea sat motionless in a strict seiza upon the navigation pad.  
Merca dozed off with his face mushed into a toy velocipod.

Ordis… didn't say a thing, actually, the cephalon was glad that his operator had finally decided to take a break without being coerced into it. The lull was relished.  
Gave him time to peer over things that weren't related to navigation or ship maintenance- and, his dearest operator had been keeping an eye peeled for fragments of his cracked memories that were scattered across the system. Collected them. Disjointed garbage data, how grea--  
Ah!  
The star chart codex entries are all but complete, with only a scant few sections missing. Of course the operator wouldn't burden Ordis with junk data, he knew that the puzzle would come together with enough effort! And now, only corner pieces were missing. He could see most of the full picture, should he decide to venture into the codex databanks.

Except, once he did, Ordis discovered that it wasn't a picture. Not even in that metaphorical data-weave sense, like well-crafted theorems would be.  
No, this puzzle… formed a mirror. A cracked mirror, fractured shards still missing- but intact enough that the cephalon could register the form in the reflection.  
A form that uttered to misplaced memories like a phantom limb grasping for something. Paradox. It touches- takes hold, of Ordis.  
He remembers something.  
He remembers himself, he thinks. As he once was, centuries ago. He remembers...  
Bitterness. A body, vocal chords, nerves. Criss-crosses and splashes of scars, a body that's only known the battlefield. A glimpse of someone- who…? Grief spurned on by what he'd witnessed, seeping into guilt, turned into wrath for his masters.  
He had met Executor Ballas before after all- the name rang a phantom bell, in the past. The pang of anger was hollow, then- now, it was hitting home with reason.  
What reason?

...  
The fractures withhold that, intentionally-- misplaced memories give no answers. The empty chunks of the mirror offer nothing. The Glassmaker was clumsy back then, and the Executor had to compensate with brute force.

Though, in tatters as it was, the mirror did give Ordis plenty to mull over during silent moments. Who he was, and why he seemingly had torn himself asunder to forget, if the fractures were to even be trusted. Why he knew what a good battle felt like.

Should he share any of the revelations with his operator? He didn't know, but-  
"Mh, Ordis? Why did the lights turn off?"

In his reverie, the cephalon had forgotten about the lights. Damn things were on the blink and he had to manually keep them on.  
"Apologies, Operator! I was…" Distracted. "Cycling them. Maintenance."

"...Mhm."  
He didn't buy it, of course. But no further questions came from the groggy operator, only a quiet 'keep them off' as he snuggled back in to sleep.  
Ordis had to wonder, if there was a difference between sleeping in the transference pod and out. Probably. The operator's rest seemed considerably more peaceful outside of it, as far as he could tell.

Protea sat in a seiza upon the navigation pad, deathly still and unaware.  
Merca snored in his makeshift nest.  
Ordis filtered through old memories made new on their discovery.

This qualified as rest for them.


End file.
